Showcase Kissinger Sommer

For the past 30 years, Kissinger Sommer has been the cultural figure­head not only of the town of Bad Kissingen, but of the entire region. The music festival of inter­national promi­nence is a social hotspot as well as a promo­tional and cultural hall­mark. Unsurpris­ingly, its renown and its recogni­tion by artists and visitors have been growing constantly. The genius loci and the unique ambi­ence in Bad Kissingen form a sym­biosis with the bold artistic capa­bili­ties of the hosts, the musicians, and the audience, guaranteed to create unforget­table experiences. Though, its brand and appearance had not fully kept up with the gain in eminence and were some­what limited in capital­izing on this powerful union.

The task was there­fore to develop an appearance for Kissinger Sommer that does justice to the unique­ness of the festival in a fully-fledged, state-of-the-art design, and yet to remain true to the over­all face of the town. Working together with the brand managers of the festival and the town, we lived up to this chal­lenge at all levels. For example, the font we used in the word­brand visibly responds to that of Bad Kissingen, but thanks to its deli­cately emphasized serifs, also plays on the elegance of the music. We broke the classical stringence of the font by replacing the stems of specific cha­racters with lines in the style of a musical score, thus not only adding rhythm to the textual appearance but also giving it visual remini­scence to music. The subtle lines from the logo of the town itself are also included, but more music­ally curved and evoking images of sound waves or the strings on an instru­ment.  The lively spectrum of summer colours was developed from the design in Bad Kissingen’s visual media, which is based on each of the four seasons. Along with the modern photography, this creates a confident appearance that highlights the inter­national signifi­cance of the festival to the same extent as the organic connec­tion with the town of Bad Kissingen.